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YES Magazine: 7 Things the Defund DAPL Campaign Has Achieved So Far

YES Magazine highlights how pressuring banks to step away from the Dakota Access Pipeline is having results, including impacts on how they view human rights.

“The most visible outcome has been [that] Wells Fargo and Citibank and a few other banks [are looking] at their due diligence around human rights in particular, so that’s a good outcome,” said Jason Opeña Disterhoft, climate and energy senior campaigner at RAN. “It is good that this overall experience has forced the banks to recognize that they can’t fall back on what the federal government is doing—they need their own policies that do justice to human rights principles. … The pause in the project gives the banks the opportunity to reconsider their involvement.”

Rainforest Action Network doesn’t know if there are covenants in the contracts between the banks and the pipeline companies regarding human rights violations, but if there were, that would allow the banks to drop the loans.

“The ball is in their court,” Disterhoft said of the banks. “Are they more afraid of these firms, or what their ongoing participation in this project will do to their reputation? That’s the question for them.” (read more)